Tag Archives: flash stories

Time always slips by so fast during the holidays, doesn’t it? I was waiting for the notice that an anthology I contributed to had gone live. The final deadline was mid-November, and NaNo kept me busy and left me exhausted as December started. So it took me about a week to learn the anthology had already gone live.

Then it took me a few days to make sure it was listed on my Amazon author page with my own chapbooks and collection.

This flash anthology was put together by and for students of Holly Lisle. These are all very short stories, of five hundred words or less, created after her free flash fiction class. They lean toward the fantastic, but I believe we include every major genre. The great thing for you is that the ebook version is free, and available in multiple formats. (You can of course get a dead tree version if you decide to collect everyone’s autographs to say you ‘read us when…’)

Progress! I released my second collection of short stories, in another mix of fantasy and science fiction. One woman wants a quiet and peaceful home after threat and trauma, a part-time smuggler needs a safe place to hide smuggled hootch, and a young man isn’t sure if it is just jealousy when he doesn’t trust the new magic apprentice. Do invasions end in disarray or in a whimper?

I’m already at work on the next collection for sometime next month. It will be challenging because we have some paving repairs and gutter replacements scheduled. I’m hoping to finish a series of flash stories into a space gothic mystery. An isolated mansion on a lonely moor really doesn’t seem like that big jump to a space station in the outer solar system to me. The setting and characters are ready, but the plot just sits there or veers away from gothic romance into SF practicality. I’m hoping to do a collection every month for the rest of the year.

NaNo is starting to loom as well. November was so far away, but now it’s only a bit over three months. I think I may try for a SF story this year, something simpler so I can publish without a paid editor.

I’m forcing myself to write despite my severe unhappiness with my computer issues. Not that I have issues with computers, I love the things. Unless I’m sleeping, exercising, or eating (and I try to cheat a little there), I usually have a computer running in my lap.

But when my old HP workhorse went south it left me more than a little lost. The only time distraction quiet a little is between midnight and dawn. So I can sleep or spend half of my days wasted due to sleep deprivation. At best I think I may be able to try another computer in a week and live on hope.

I’ve been writing a lot of flash stories lately, but they are much grimmer than I prefer. I wish I knew why. The only thing I’ve thought of is that horror and fear are quicker and easier to grab in a small space. Does anyone have a better idea?